My Understandings and A Few Questions

[AureateDawn]

Here are my understands of a few things (as a theistic evolutionist) I would like corrected on if I am wrong, and a few questions on a variety of subjects concerning origins:

Adam and Eve were going to die anyways, as it was a part of life, because Genesis 3:22 says that they had not yet taken from the Tree of Life to live forever. Which would mean that they were never immortal, but mortal. OK, so why is there Genesis 3:19, which says that they shall return to the earth as dust just as they came? Because that would seem to imply that they would not have died before, but that they would have died now because they ate the forbidden fruit.

And if God didn't want them to eat of the Tree of Life, why did He only command them to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of G&E instead of the both it and the Tree of Life (Genesis 2:17)? And, I assume the death mentioned in that same verse was a spiritual death and not a physical one?

In Genesis 3:21-24, God says that man had become like Him from eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of G&E, and that he must not be allowed to eat of the Tree of Life and live forever. This seems to be saying that, if they would have become immortal, God could not have reversed it, and he was afraid they would become immortal, thus making Him not omnipotent.

When A&E hid, God asked questions. Why did He ask them questions if He is all knowing?

Why was there a Tree of Life and a Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to begin with? Seems pointless to me unless God was purposefully trying to tempt them.

Oh, and can someone also explain Genesis 3:15? I don't get it.

How can evolution explain the long lifetimes given in the Bible? According to evolution, it would be impossible.

How exactly do you interpret Genesis 1 and 2 and what makes them subject to a non-literal interpretation opposed to the rest of Genesis? Is the original language different or what? Even then, some things are surely literal, such as the naming of the rivers, and the orders to marry.

Just trying to understand things. All of my family are Creationists, and totally burn down evolution when I try and explain it to them, and I have no arguments to go back with, so maybe some of my confusion in the areas I just posted will help me to better understand by beliefs in accordance to the Bible. Thanks!


God's Peace,
Justin

 

[HSetterfield]

Dear A. Silence,

I am a young earth creationist, so I don't want you to think I am sneaking something in, but I think you have misunderstood some of what Genesis is saying.

The tree of life is mentioned in Revelation 22:2, where it is for the healing of the nations. So we may presume, I think, that it was also for healing in the Garden of Eden. This is why Adam and Eve could have lived forever -- they would always have access to healing for whatever happened. Denied this, they would eventually die.

The presumption is, theologically, that instead of dying had they not sinned, they would have been 'translated' to heaven after some period of time. This happened to Enoch as well as Elijah, so we do have something to go on there.

It is not part of life to die anyway. At least not then. And it won't be in the future. Paul tells us in Romans 5:12, "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned..." and he goes on. But the biblical message is extraordinarily clear that death came due to sin and sin came due to Adam. So if death came through sin and sin through Adam, then, had Adam not sinned, he would not have died. That is simply a logical thing and totally biblical. If you disagree, on this one you would have to argue with the Bible, not with us...

The Tree of Life was only forbidden once man had disobeyed and been separated from God spiritually. God refused to allow men to live in their sin bodies forever. And we should be grateful for that! There were two deaths, actually, mentioned in Genesis regarding Adam, but it does not come across in the English. The translation really should read closer to the Hebrew, saying something like "That day, in dying you will die." The spiritual death, or separation from God, was immediate. The physical death, or separation from the body, would inevitably come.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was simply an option to not obey God. They already knew good, for they knew God, and Jesus said very plainly that only God is good (intrinsically). So all that was left was the result of disobedience -- evil.

But there is another point here. Idiomatically, in the Hebrew culture, and in all the ancient cultures, I think, the phrase 'to know good and evil' meant to be able to judge between the two for oneself. That does not make anyone omnipotent and God was not in the least nervous about man taking His place! Rather, it was that man was now setting himself up as a judge of good and evil and that province is God's and God's alone. When we try to decide on our own we are usurping HIS authority and right in our lives. That God has let us see the results of in the world today, but that is also something He will put an end to, hopefully very soon.

So 'becoming like God, knowing good and evil' meant then, as it should mean now, trusting one's own judgment apart from His direction. And that's a very dangerous road to take.

Why did God ask "Where are you?"

He was giving Adam and Eve a chance to respond to Him in their fallen state. He already knew. He also knew ahead of time that they would sin. He had already made provision for that, for if you read Revelation 13:8 you will find Christ referred to as the Lamb slain from the foundation/creation of the world.

Why was there a Tree of Life and a Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to begin with? The Tree of Life was provision for their health and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was the only way they could actively love God. Jesus said "If you love me you will obey me." If there had been no disobedience possible, they would have had no way to express love for God. The same is true for us today. God did not tempt them -- Satan did. But God has allowed temptation for all of us so that we can not only learn to depend on Him, but be able to have a way to show our love for Him. Had there been no chance of disobedience, they would have been like robots, having no options.

Genesis 3:15, to answer your next question, is the Promise to Adam and Eve that there would be a Redeemer. From the seed of woman (a virgin birth) would come One who would crush the head (the power and ability) of the devil himself, although the devil would be able to cripple the Redeemer temporarily (strike his heel). We have seen that played out in history exactly as prophesied.

Continuing, evolution cannot explain the long lifetimes in the Bible. Evolutionists try to step around this point if they claim to be Christians in any number of ways. But either the Bible is telling the truth or it is not. It's as simple as that.

Justin, I started out believing evolution and, when I started teaching, I was teaching it. From the time I was about 25 to about 30, some questions some students had asked got me to reading everything I could lay my hands on regarding this evolution/creation stuff. By the time I had finished, I had made the INCREDIBLY HARD transition from evolution to creation and then to young earth creation. For me it was because of the data and very much, at that time, because of information available in a field called population genetics.

As the years have gone by, I have realized more and more that the Bible has known what it is talking about all along and we can believe it as, start to finish, God's true Word.

Keep chasing the truth. There is no better thing you can ever do. God bless you.

Helen Setterfield

 

[Melethiel]

and he was afraid they would become immortal, thus making Him not omnipotent.

How, exactly, would A&E becoming immortal make God not omnipotent?

How can evolution explain the long lifetimes given in the Bible? According to evolution, it would be impossible.

Symbolic. Note that all of the lifespans fall short of 1000 years (the number given to perfection), and get shorter and shorter as you go down the list. This is to signify the fallen nature of man, and how sin gets more and more widespread.

 

[laptoppop]

It is extremely difficult to reconcile theistic evolution with a literal Adam and Eve. Some try, but you still have major problems, especially concerning death. The easier way is to spiritualize the entire story instead of looking for historical truth. Of course, as you pointed out, the story blends seamlessly into historical record and it is problemmatic how to determine the edge.

This is why you'll find most YECs (like me) taking a more literal interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis, and most TEs taking a much less literal interpretation.

 

[HSetterfield]

The lifespans are not symbolic. They are real and presented as real historical lineage. To call them symbolic is to step around what is actually being said.

If you will notice, the first shortening is immediately following the Flood. Geology (standard secular) now knows and publishes that there were no radioactive elements on the surface of the earth before the Flood. If you check Genesis 7:11, you will note that the first event in the Flood was not rain, but the bursting forth of the fountains of the deep. This would have brought up with them enormous amounts of pulverized material. This was mankind's first exposure to radioactivity and the result was evident within one generation: shorter lifespans. Shorter by half if you look.

The next time the lifespans are shortened is immediately following the division of the continents at the time of Peleg. Here, again, we have a massive change in the earth's crust and the subsequent exposure of more radioactive elements. Lifespans again show immediate changes by fifty percent and from there, they go down gradually to the 120 year maximum we have now.

There is nothing symbolic about any of that....

 

[Deamiter]

Unfortunately, there's no magical (or simple) way to Biblical interpretation. The first few chapters of Genesis are indeed written in a different way than many other chapters, but this isn't why any evolutionist (I've ever met anyway) interprets it symbolically.

Quite simply, the Bible is a collection of inspired writing about spiritual issues. The primary meaning is always spiritual.

You might have heard that "Adam" means "man" when translated to english. Adam and his actions are symbolic of each of our personal actions. We all have choices and at times we all choose to sin. As Helen said, God also always gives us a chance to come to him willingly and repent.

With these deep spiritual truths, that these chapters aren't historical doesn't at all suggest that they don't contain truth.

 

[Melethiel]

Geology (standard secular) now knows and publishes that there were no radioactive elements on the surface of the earth before the Flood.

Standard geology does not even recognize a Flood, so how can they know that there were no radioactive elements? (A ridiculous statement in and of itself.)

The next time the lifespans are shortened is immediately following the division of the continents at the time of Peleg.

It says "the earth" was divided. That can mean several things, including cultural or political divides.

The thing about the plain vanilla literal view of Scripture is that there is no depth. Is the purpose of Scripture to give us a geology textbook, or understanding of God?

 

[Deamiter]

Geology (standard secular) now knows and publishes that there were no radioactive elements on the surface of the earth before the Flood.

"Standard, secular geology" doesn't recognize that there was a global flood, so it's more than a little disingenuous to claim that the scientific community of geologists agrees that there were no radioactive elements on the earth before said flood!

This is pretty shaky reasoning at best. We have geneologies and records with more reasonable ages going back much further than those in the Bible particularly Egyptian and Chinese, though both become somewhat fragmented beyond 10,000 years. Of course that they are fragmented doesn't in the least allow for the possibility that they simply didn't exist in one of the gaps -- how do you build an entire culture identical to a previous culture from 8 people fast enough that it's never recorded in the history?

Young Earth Creationists these days tend to avoid talking about these records and stick to their 6000/10,000 year dates. It's actually MUCH easier to show that these dates were impossible because of uninterrupted cultures through these periods than if YECs picked a time that's further back, like 20,000 years or so.

 

[HSetterfield]

OK, let's do it this way: standard secular geology recognizes that the earth did not have any radioactive materials on its surface when it was first formed.

That WAS before the Flood, but never mind about that...

Deamiter, you don't have to 'interpret' the Bible. It's pretty straightforward.

Genesis is not 'spiritual' primarily. It is a series of eyewitness accounts of what actually happened. It is presented that way, signed off by the authors themselves, and needs to be accepted or rejected on its own terms and not twisted to meet someone's different ideas.

The discoveries that made folk realize it was actually a series of eyewitness accounts was made by Wiseman in the thirties. This may help explain what is going on:
http://www.ldolphin.org/tablethy.html

More and more OT scholars are starting to accept the Tablet Hypothesis.

Melethiel, the 'eretz' was divided. This ALWAYS means something firm or solid in the Hebrew and generally a landmass. It was definitely not referring to cultural or political things. If you check Peleg's brother, Joktan, in Genesis 10, you will note that Joktan had thirteen sons, the youngest of which was Jobab. This is the Job of the book of that name. He lived in the land of Uz, the oldest son of Aram (Gen. 10:23). If you read his book for the physical catastrophes he was experiencing and mentions rather than for the theological arguments, which is how most read it, you may be surprised to find references to giant earth movements (mountains overturning), an ice age in the Middle East, firestorms, tsunamis, giant winds, etc. He lived during a very tumultous time. The continents were actively separating.

One interesting bit of science, if you don't mind -- when rock melts, it gains ten percent in volume. The radio decay under the earth's crust was heating the rock enormously and great magma pools were forming. The pressure finally was released, probably triggered by an asteroid hit, and the earth literally unzipped down the Atlantic Rift. Now, a ten percent volume increase translates into a 18% circumference increase. That translates into the average width of the Atlantic Ocean today.

Just a little tidbit that might help you wonder if the Bible isn't really telling the straightforward truth about matters historically.

The purpose of Scripture is not to give us either a geology textbook OR, really, an understanding of God. It is to give us an understanding of the relationship between God and man, how it got that way, and God's plan for us. Knowing God is how Jesus defined eternal life (John 17:3) and will take all of eternity...

Deamiter, getting to your last post -- there was no similarity between antediluvian civilizations and post-diluvian until about now. Jesus said in the last days we would be like it was then.

The thousands of years in Chinese and Egyptian writings are often misunderstood, misinterpreted, and thus revised by those studying them. If you have kept up with any of that you are probably aware of the giant battles that take place among those who study such things.

We know, for example, that the cultures were most definitely NOT uninterupted, and for you to make that sort of a statement shows a pretty high degree of ignorance of their histories. In just the five thousand years or so we have of Egyptian culture, we have found great disturbances, changes, and gaps which leave us wondering what on earth happened.

I would also mention that according to history books, no major culture can be traced back beyond about 3000 BC. It was somewhere in there we have the first cities in Egypt at Abydos, Elephantine, and Hierakonpolis. In Mesopotamia we have Lagash and Uruk becoming powerful. References to Troy, Syria, Palestine (the area) and Malta start about a hundred or so years later. The Harappan civiliation in the Indus Valley shows up around 2500 BC, although my own suspician is that they were there somewhat earlier. The Shang Dynasty in China does not, I think, show up until around 1500 BC! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_China )

So where are you getting your ideas of ten thousand years of continuous civilizations, I don't know!

 

[The Lady Kate]

Here are my understands of a few things (as a theistic evolutionist) I would like corrected on if I am wrong, and a few questions on a variety of subjects concerning origins:

Adam and Eve were going to die anyways, as it was a part of life, because Genesis 3:22 says that they had not yet taken from the Tree of Life to live forever. Which would mean that they were never immortal, but mortal. OK, so why is there Genesis 3:19, which says that they shall return to the earth as dust just as they came? Because that would seem to imply that they would not have died before, but that they would have died now because they ate the forbidden fruit.

My own 2 cents is that physical death was always a part of the plan... the body is only a box for the soul, and all that. So even if A+E were physically mortal, it wouldn't make a whole lot of difference... until they disobeyed God, and were separated from him by sin.

Now they are both spiritually dead, and thus, in physical death, are nothing more than dust -- no heaven, no afterlife, no commune with the Almighty, just... kaput.

And if God didn't want them to eat of the Tree of Life, why did He only command them to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of G&E instead of the both it and the Tree of Life (Genesis 2:17)?

God never explicitly forbade the tree of life... I guess A+E just picked the wrong tree to eat from first.

And, I assume the death mentioned in that same verse was a spiritual death and not a physical one?

it would have to be, wouldn't it? A+E didn't physically die the very day they ate.

In Genesis 3:21-24, God says that man had become like Him from eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of G&E, and that he must not be allowed to eat of the Tree of Life and live forever. This seems to be saying that, if they would have become immortal, God could not have reversed it, and he was afraid they would become immortal, thus making Him not omnipotent.

It does seem that God's got some limitations placed on Him here...

When A&E hid, God asked questions. Why did He ask them questions if He is all knowing?

Hard to reconcile a literal A+E with what we understand about God...

Why was there a Tree of Life and a Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to begin with? Seems pointless to me unless God was purposefully trying to tempt them.

And what's the point of tempting someone when, being all-knowing, you already know if they're going to succumb or not?

A literal, historic A+E just doesn't mesh with our understanding of God.

Oh, and can someone also explain Genesis 3:15? I don't get it.

How can evolution explain the long lifetimes given in the Bible? According to evolution, it would be impossible.

If A+E aren't literal, perhaps those lifetimes aren't either? IIRC, Ancient Hebrews didn't have a heaven... when you died, that was it; kaput.

So... good people, who God favored, were given the chance to postpone "kaput" far beyond the average person.

It's a pretty common theme in ancient literature... virtue = long life.

How exactly do you interpret Genesis 1 and 2 and what makes them subject to a non-literal interpretation opposed to the rest of Genesis? Is the original language different or what? Even then, some things are surely literal, such as the naming of the rivers, and the orders to marry.

Ancient lit. tended to conflate history, mythology, and wisdom literature, usually until they were indistinguishable. It's no surprise that A+E, while not being literal, would contain some real names, locations, and customs. After all, The Illiad contains real locations too.

Just trying to understand things. All of my family are Creationists, and totally burn down evolution when I try and explain it to them, and I have no arguments to go back with, so maybe some of my confusion in the areas I just posted will help me to better understand by beliefs in accordance to the Bible. Thanks!


God's Peace,
Justin

Well, best of luck to you! My best advice for now is not to argue the point with them... for now, learn as much as you can, and square it away in your own head.

 

[The Lady Kate]

Symbolic. Note that all of the lifespans fall short of 1000 years (the number given to perfection), and get shorter and shorter as you go down the list. This is to signify the fallen nature of man, and how sin gets more and more widespread.

Hmmm... I hadn't noticed that!

 

[HSetterfield]

Lady Kate, "squaring it" in her own head was exactly what Eve did.

Don't you think it better to dig for the truth? Maybe even to believe God's Word?

 

[The Lady Kate]

Lady Kate, "squaring it" in her own head was exactly what Eve did.

No, taking bad advice from a snake was exactly what Eve did.

Don't you think it better to dig for the truth? Maybe even to believe God's Word?

God's Word? You mean Christ? I was wondering when someone would bring Him into the discussion.

What I mean is, don't you think it would help for the OP to understand what evolution is or is not before jumping to any conclusions?

I would think that's what "digging for the truth" would be.

 

[AureateDawn]

I believe in a literal Adam and Eve. I mean, they are indeed saints in the Church. Saint Adam and Saint Eve.

Plus the whole "he couldn't reverse their immortality making him not omnipotent" is worrying me greatly. =/

This is so confusing.


God's Peace,
Justin

 

[The Lady Kate]

I believe in a literal Adam and Eve. I mean, they are indeed saints in the Church. Saint Adam and Saint Eve.

The Church is fallible, even when saints are concerned... look what they did to St. Christopher, among others.

 

[AureateDawn]

Unsure of who St. Christopher is. I will look into it, but for now I believe in a literal Adam and Eve.


God's Peace,
Justin

 

[shernren]

OK, let's do it this way: standard secular geology recognizes that the earth did not have any radioactive materials on its surface when it was first formed.

Cite please? Actually, most terrestrial background radiation today comes from isotopes like potassium-40 and carbon-14. Potassium-40, as an isotope of potassium, would have been found in small amounts in all surface rocks which contain potassium. Carbon-14 is continually produced in the atmosphere by cosmic rays. While we're at it, cosmic rays themselves contribute a lot of background radiation at all.

So no, secular geology does not recognize any such thing, as far as I know. In fact, the farther back in time you go, the MORE radioactivity you would expect to see, since the farther back you go the more radioisotope there is that hasn't decayed. Furthermore, if you believe that accelerated atomic decay happened in the past, this accelerated atomic decay would have further increased the amount of radiation that people in the past experienced.

All that adds up to mean that there should have been more background radiation in the past, not less, by your own reckonings.

Melethiel, the 'eretz' was divided. This ALWAYS means something firm or solid in the Hebrew and generally a landmass. It was definitely not referring to cultural or political things. If you check Peleg's brother, Joktan, in Genesis 10, you will note that Joktan had thirteen sons, the youngest of which was Jobab. This is the Job of the book of that name. He lived in the land of Uz, the oldest son of Aram (Gen. 10:23). If you read his book for the physical catastrophes he was experiencing and mentions rather than for the theological arguments, which is how most read it, you may be surprised to find references to giant earth movements (mountains overturning), an ice age in the Middle East, firestorms, tsunamis, giant winds, etc. He lived during a very tumultous time. The continents were actively separating.

By your own reckoning:

Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the landmass (eretz) of Nod, east of Eden.
(Genesis 4:16 ESV)

Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the landmass (eretz) of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. Now Sarai was barren; she had no child. Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the landmass (eretz) of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran. Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your landmass (eretz) and your kindred and your father's house to the landmass (eretz) that I will show you.
(Genesis 11:28-12:1 ESV)

And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the landmass (eretz) of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the landmass (eretz) to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this landmass (eretz)." So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
(Genesis 12:5-7 ESV)

"Is not the whole landmass (eretz) before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left." And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD, like the landmass (eretz) of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other. Abram settled in the landmass (eretz) of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom.
(Genesis 13:9-12 ESV)

It's clear that "eretz" quite often refers to restricted localities associated with a certain people, as much as it is occasionally used to refer to landmasses and to the whole planet.

 

[Servant222]

One interesting bit of science, if you don't mind -- when rock melts, it gains ten percent in volume. The radio decay under the earth's crust was heating the rock enormously and great magma pools were forming. The pressure finally was released, probably triggered by an asteroid hit, and the earth literally unzipped down the Atlantic Rift. Now, a ten percent volume increase translates into a 18% circumference increase. That translates into the average width of the Atlantic Ocean today.

Just a little tidbit that might help you wonder if the Bible isn't really telling the straightforward truth about matters historically.

The heat produced by radioactive decay may indeed explain the origin of magma- molten rock. But modern plate tectonic theory suggests that this heat creates convection currents of magma in the Earth's mantle (the next layer down), similar to convection currents that form when you heat a pot of soup on a stove.

Now resting on top of the mantle is the Earth's crust, which is broken into a number of large plates. Where upwelling lava in the mantle comes to the surface, the crustal plates are driven apart, and a line of volcanoes mark the rift where the gap is filled with igneous rock- this is what has created the mid-Atlantic and other ocean ridges. But the Earth's size isn't increasing because of this volcanic activity. This is because at subduction zones, where two plates collide and one is forced under the other, material is returned to the earth's mantle. This means that the addition of igneous rock at a spreading ridge is balanced by the return of crustal material to the mantle at subduction zones.

So we have a dynamic earth where crustal plates move relative to one another because of circulating currents of magma in the Earth's mantle, but the earth as a whole remains the same size. Earthquakes, volcanic activity, and other geologic phenomena, including those described in the Bible, are often related to interactions between plates. What is interesting to me is that the Biblical descriptions of earthquakes, etc. seems to be entirely consistent with our modern understanding of plate tectonics- specifically as it applies to the Middle East (this is the topic of a separate thread, which I hope will provide more details).


For more detail, you can read any number of good WEB sites on the subject- here, for example, is the USGS version: http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/PlateTectonics/description_plate_tectonics.html

 

[shernren]

One interesting bit of science, if you don't mind -- when rock melts, it gains ten percent in volume. The radio decay under the earth's crust was heating the rock enormously and great magma pools were forming. The pressure finally was released, probably triggered by an asteroid hit, and the earth literally unzipped down the Atlantic Rift. Now, a ten percent volume increase translates into a 18% circumference increase. That translates into the average width of the Atlantic Ocean today.

Just a little tidbit that might help you wonder if the Bible isn't really telling the straightforward truth about matters historically.

Actually, a ten percent volume increase translates into a roughly 3.2% circumference increase (1.1 ^ (1/3) ~= 1.03228), not 18%. At first I thought you might be referring to surface area (and the Atlantic indeed covers roughly 20% of the Earth's surface), but this increases by roughly 6.6% (1.1 ^ (2/3) ~= 1.0656), again not 18%. An 18% increase in radius (and concomitantly circumference) actually corresponds with a 64% volume increase. This can be easily verified, using online calculators such as http://www.1728.com/diam.htm

Sphere radius = 1 -> volume = 4.189, circumference = 6.283, surface area = 12.566
Sphere radius = 1.032 -> volume = 4.604 (~10% increase), circumference = 6.4842 (~3% increase - circumference is linearly related to radius), surface area = 13.383 (~6.6% increase).

 

[Melethiel]

Deamiter, you don't have to 'interpret' the Bible. It's pretty straightforward.

If it is so straightforward, why all the different denominations? Why all the fights over doctrine? I mean, to me, Scripture is pretty clear in stating that Baptism saves and that the bread and wine really are Christ's Body and Blood. Obviously, many people disagree. I guess it's not so straightforward after all.